“And if we don’t find the will he’s got a fine lot now,” I said. “Just think of the eight or nine thousand head of cattle he got from Mr. Davenport. Now that he has got them here he can sell them for five dollars a head, easy enough. That will be more than enough to put him on his feet.”
“But I tell you that will is going to spoil his kettle of fish!” answered Tom, as confidently as though he had the document in his pocket. “You will see that we will have it in our hands when we come back this way.”
I wished then that I felt as confident of it as Tom did, but somehow I saw too many difficulties in the way. In the first place, there was Henderson, who wouldn’t believe that that pocket-book was the only one Mr. Davenport had, and would be equally certain to send someone to the ranch to look for it. And if he found it, I wasn’t sure that we could get it away from him. When a man pulls a loaded gun on you and tells you to stand where you are, you had better stand. Then, again, there was the invalid, with all his eccentricities of hiding things where no one would ever think of looking for them; in fact, I didn’t believe he could have found it himself if he had been going to the ranch with us. Taking these two things into consideration, I thought we had undertaken something of a scheme. But I said nothing about it, for I did not want to discourage Tom. Everything depended on him.
For hours we rode along, talking over matters and things that had fallen to our lot in Texas, and were beginning to look around for a belt of post oaks, in which we could camp for the day, when Tom, who was going on ahead, suddenly stopped and held up his finger. I had heard the same sound, but didn’t think it best to speak of it. Presently it came again, faint and far off, but there was no mistaking it.
“It is thunder, as sure as I am a foot high,” said Tom, his face brightening as if he had just discovered something.
“It is, for a fact! I heard it long ago, but you were so busy talking that you didn’t notice it,” I replied. “I really believe it is going to rain.”
“Grant that it may be a deluge. I will gladly swim from here to the ranch if they will only send water enough. There is some timber straight ahead, and the sooner we reach it the sooner we will be safe.”
It did look like rain, sure enough, and even our horses felt the coming breeze and were not disposed to wait for the spur. One would have thought there was a regiment of cavalry camped in the woods toward which we were hastening, for the animals neighed to each other as fast as they could take breath. The sky became overcast, after a while the moon was completely shut out from our view, and then everything was as dark as one could wish; but we were already headed for the timber and did not care for that. At last we were fairly inside the protecting branches, and then the storm came. What a deluge it was! It wasn’t a “norther,” such as we would have expected a month or two later, but a regular downpour of rain, and the lightning flashed incessantly. Whatever it may have been for us—and we were as wet as drowned rats before we had staked out our horses—we knew it was the life of half our cattle in the drive. We whistled and sang as we took our saddles off our horses and put them on the leeward side of the trees so that we could keep out of the storm, and all the while it was so dark that we couldn’t see each other. Let some of you who haven’t seen a drop of rain for sixteen months, and the streams were all dry, and you had to carry your water from a distance, imagine how good it seemed to us. Every time the lightning flashed with unwonted fury, and it seemed to us that one or the other of us had been struck, I would call out as soon as I could make myself heard: “Tom, are you there yet?” and the answer that came back was always a cheering one: “Yes, I’m here yet. A man who was born to be hanged can’t be struck by lightning.”
To make a long story short the storm continued all that day and never let up a bit; and Tom and I slept through it all. We picked out a comfortable position on the side of the trees opposite the storm, and wrapping up head and ears in blankets, went off into the land of dreams. When we awoke the storm had passed and the moon was just coming up, and our first thought was to get something to eat; for it had rained so hard all day that any attempt to start a fire would have been useless. Overjoyed as we were to see the rain, we still had sense enough to take care of our provisions. Tom had the salt stowed away inside of his coat so that the water could not get at it, and the meal I had provided for. I had taken the bag that contained it in between my knees and covered it over with my blanket, and although the outside of the meal was wet, the inside of it was perfectly dry.
“Remember, now, that you are to get three meals in one,” said Tom, handing out the salt and going out to attend to the horses which, having eaten all the boughs within reach, now showed a disposition to get at the grass. “I am as hungry as a wolf.”